Joyce Brothers

Dr. Joyce Brothers was an American psychologist, syndicated newspaper columnist, television and radio personality, and author who, beginning in the late 1950s, helped popularize psychology for a mass American audience. With her calm, plainspoken manner and an unmistakable on-air voice, she was for half a century the country's most recognizable practical psychologist, dispensing advice on marriage, sex, work, and family from television studios, magazines, and more than 350 daily newspapers.

She was born Joyce Diane Bauer on October 20, 1927, in Manhattan, New York City, the elder of two daughters of Morris K. Bauer, an attorney, and Estelle Rapaport Bauer, also a lawyer. Raised in a professional Jewish household in Far Rockaway, Queens, she graduated from Far Rockaway High School in 1943 and earned a bachelor's degree in home economics from Cornell University in 1947, where she met fellow student Milton Brothers, whom she married in 1949. She received a master's and a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 1953.

In 1955 she became the first woman to win the top prize on the television quiz show The 64,000 Question, answering questions on boxing after weeks of intensive study, and she defended the title successfully on The 64,000 Challenge.

The exposure led NBC to give her a daytime psychology program in 1958, the first of its kind on American television, and a long-running syndicated newspaper column followed. She wrote ten books, including What Every Woman Should Know About Men. She died of respiratory failure in New York City on May 13, 2013.

The feminine name Joyce derives from the Old French Josce, from the Breton saint's name Iodoc meaning lord. She gave it the cadence of reassurance.